Inflammatory intestinal diseases are spontaneous and chronic diseases of which typical examples are ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease, and the numbers of the patients suffering therefrom have been steadily increasing in recent years. Many principal and clinical investigations have been vigorously carried out by investigating groups such as the special diseases investigating group on refractory inflammatory intestinal disorders of the Ministry of Health, Japan; however, the cause and the morbidity of the diseases involved have not been discovered.
For the treatment of inflammatory intestinal diseases, only several attempts such as the administration of an immunosuppressive agent, 6-mercaptopurine, the voluminous administration of an antibacterial agent, sulfasalazine, and oral, intravenous, topical and intracolonic administration of steroid hormones, such as prednisolone acetate, have been made. However, these pharmaceutical treatments can play a role only as symptomatic therapy for the diseases and are not of the type which can quickly remove the symptoms arising from digestive organs, such as diarrhea, bloody stool, and abdominal pain. Furthermore, these drugs mentioned above give side effects in a high rate and are required to be administered voluminously for a long period, and therefore, such drugs have a disadvantage in terms of the maintenance of the quality of life of the patients. Moreover, it is known that non-steroid anti-inflammatory agents such as indomethacin, which is commonly used for the treatment for inflammatory diseases, normally make the condition of the patients suffering from the inflammatory intestinal diseases worse, providing difficulty in the maintenance of remission of the diseases.
It is an object of the present invention to remedy inflammatory reactions, which is the cause of the disease, in a short time and to provide a highly safe remedy for the inflammatory intestinal diseases by removing the symptoms deriving from digestive organs, such as diarrhea, bloody stool, and abdominal pain, therewith.